bles the actions of fo trivial a creature, with metaphors drawn from the most important concerns of mankind. His verses are not in a greater moife and hurry in the battels of Æneas and Turnus, than in the engagement of two swarms. And as in his Æneis he compares the labours of his Trojans to those of Bees and Pifmires, here he compares the labours of the Becs to thofe of the Cyclops. In fhort, the last Georgic was a good prelude to the Eneis; and very well fhewed what the Poet could do in the description of what was really great, by his defcribing the mock-grandeur of an Infect with fo good a grace. There is more pleasantnefs in the little platform of a garden, which he gives us about the middle of this book, than in all the spacious walks and water-works of Rapin. The fpeech of Proteus at the end can never be enough admired, and was indeed very fit to conclude so divine a work. After this particular account of the Beauties in the Georgies, I fhould in the next place endeavour to point out its Imperfection, if it has any. But though I think there are fome few parts in it that are not fo beautiful as the rest, I shall not prefume to name them, as rather fufpecting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that Poem, which lay fo long under Virgil's correction, and had his last hand put to it. The first Georgic was probably burlesqued in the Author's lifetime; for we fill find in the Scholiafts a verse that ridicules part of a line tranflated from Hefied. Nudus ara, fere nudus-----And we may eafily guefs at the judgment of this extraordinary Critick, whoever he was, from his cenfuring this particular precept. We may be fure Virgil would not have tranflated it from Hefiod, had he not difcovered fome beauty in it; and indeed the beauty of it is what I have before obferved to be frequently met with in Virgil, the delivering the the precept fo indirectly, and fingling out the particular circumstance of sowing and plowing Naked, to fuggeft to us that these employments are proper only in the Hot feafon of the year. I fhall not here compare the style of the Georgics with that of Lucretius, which the reader may fee already done in the preface to the fecond volume of Mifcellany Poems; but shall conclude this Poem to be the most complete, elaborate, and finish'd piece of all Antiquity. The neis indeed is of a Nobler kind, but the Georgic is more Perfect in its kind. The Æneis has a greater variety of beauties in it, but those of the Georgic are more exquifite. In fhort, the Georgic has all the perfection that can be expected in a Poem written by the greatest Poet in the flower of his age, when his invention was ready, his imagination warm, his judgment fettled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity. The End of the First Volume. A Poem to His Majesty. Prefented to the A Translation of all Virgil's Fourth Georgick, ex- 16 32 To -35 4. Song For St. Cecilia's Day at Oxford. - 43 A VOL. I. The |